


and i could give you all the olive trees

by Cirkne



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: M/M, Pining, Pre-Relationship, Set in Season 1
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-07
Updated: 2020-02-07
Packaged: 2021-02-27 19:40:38
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,223
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22601125
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cirkne/pseuds/Cirkne
Summary: Martin just wants to be good for Jonathan.
Relationships: Martin Blackwood/Jonathan Sims
Comments: 13
Kudos: 86





	and i could give you all the olive trees

Jonathan’s so skinny. He’s all clavicles and ribs and hipbones, he’s all skin and angles and dark circles under his eyes and the skin around his nails is gross and rough and breaking. Martin dreams of breaking him in half when he’s not dreaming about worms. Sometimes he dreams about Jonathan filled with worms. Sometimes he wakes up in the middle of the night to throw up. None of it matters. What matters is that Jonathan’s so skinny. Too skinny. All Martin ever sees him eat is fruit. He’s seen him eat other stuff, before, but lately it’s all been fruit it’s all been oranges and strawberries and he doesn’t like pears but once he sat and ate a bell pepper like an apple. Okay, so a bell pepper isn’t fruit but it’s all greens it’s all not food or not enough food, at least, it’s all worrying him. And Martin has more important things to worry about, he does, they both do. 

He wants to sit down in front of him and offer to cook for him, he wants to google vegan recipes and go to the asian market to find cheap tofu and bean sprouts. He wants to cook his own liver into Jonathan’s lunch and feed it to him. That’s morbid, yes, that’s the reason he hasn’t offered yet, he cannot trust himself with that much power. He just wants to be good for him. It’s so fucking stupid. He wants to make stir fry. He makes good stir fry, an ex boyfriend told him this once. So he knows. He’s not a bad cook when he wants to be. He just doesn’t want to be until there is someone he can make proud with it. Oh, he could make Jonathan proud. 

His first night sleeping at the institute he had forgotten he was supposed to change the sheets. And they smelled like him, they did. Had he forgotten? He’s thought about it, he has, he’s daydreamed about the smell of Jonathan’s shampoo surrounding, cocooning him. He smells like jasmines and sandalwood. Martin wants to turn that scent into a candle and burn it in every place he stays in. He wants to eat jasmines in front of Jonathan, to challenge his grapes with flower blossoms, to make him watch Martin fill himself with jasmines. 

Jonathan’s left a sweater there. He doesn’t dare move it, or touch it, even, he doesn’t want to taint it but he hasn’t reminded Jonathan of it’s existence yet. He wants to keep it to himself just a bit longer. It rests on a chair right in front of the shitty bed he now sleeps in. Some mornings it’s the first thing he sees when he wakes up. He’d never fit in it, Jonathan’s so skinny but he allows himself to imagine wearing it sometimes. Just sometimes, just in passing when it catches his eye it’s cornflower blue, it’s so different from what Jonathan usually wears that Martin wonders if he misses it at all. He hopes he misses it. He would love to have a part of Jonathan that Jonathan thinks about. He hasn’t asked about it yet so it’s unlikely but most things Martin imagines are unlikely. 

He doesn’t know when this started. There had been a late night with just them two at the institute, Jonathan looking over what Martin had found for him. It must have been a good day or maybe it’d been the opposite but he’d hummed at Martin’s findings and gone “that’s quite good, actually, thank you” and if Martin was less honest with himself he could say that that had been what done it, that what he craves is just approval but he knows himself. He knows how his limbs bend and how his thoughts fall together, he had wanted to please Jonathan long before that. Maybe from the moment he met him, he’s not sure. He’d seen that messy hair and decided that this was his new project. Project- he thinks now, like this is a pass time. A fleeting thing. Like there’s an end to his madness. Had it been this bad before? He’s had boyfriends. He’s sat at the foot of their bed and wondered what he could do to be enough for them but had it been this bad? What makes Jonathan so special, suddenly? What makes him different? Is it the way his words never match his fucking actions or the way his voice sends shivers down Martin’s spine even when he isn’t talking about the statements. 

Jonathan with his hair tied up and tucked behind his ears and still all over the place, the only thing not neat or tamable about him. Jonathan catching honey on his thumb and licking it off absentmindedly, eyes fixed on an article on his phone. Jonathan taking the tea Martin makes him with no words of gratitude but washing Martin’s mug out for him later. Jonathan in sweaters that either he’s had for years or are all second hand, based on how soft they look from being washed so many times. Jonathan with his voice tired over the phone because he’d rather call 3 times in an hour than send a single text. Jonathan with- Jonathan in- Jonathan- Jonathan- Jonathan-

Jonathan at the kitchen table of the institute, looking right at Martin, deer in the headlights sort of look like Martin’s caught him doing something. His long fingers against the label of a can, covering it from view. He looks so young, suddenly, though maybe he just looks his age, for once, his demeanor has always made him seem older. Or- it doesn’t matter, does it, he’s covering a can label with his fingers but it hasn’t been long enough or will never be long enough, will it, he said it on tape that day and Jonathan- Jonathan heard it and now he’s hiding the label from Martin, guilty look in his eyes. _Oh_ Martin thinks though he doesn’t yet know what he’s realized, just that his legs are already crossing the kitchen to where Jonathan sits.

“I want to cook for you,” he says when what he means to say is only three words long. Jonathan hasn’t moved his fingers from the can though by now Martin can clearly see the peaches inside and it doesn’t matter, does it, it’s not like he meant it that seriously but Jonathan’s remembered and suddenly instead of his liver Martin just wants to feed him that stir fry of his and maybe he won’t need to eat jasmines if he can have Jonathan close enough to be able to smell his shampoo.

“I don’t imagine it’ll be any good,” Jonathan answers. He’s such a fucking dick sometimes but there’s something like the hint of a smile on his face as he takes the peaches to put them in the fridge.

“It’ll be the best thing you’ve had all year,” Martin tells him, determined. Because it will be, he will make sure of it. Jonathan doesn’t laugh but he grins, like a challenge, nods at Martin’s words.

“Alright,” he says and rests his hand on Martin’s shoulder once he walks back to the table. It’s not the first time they’ve touched but it’s different this time, it is, Martin can feel every atom in his body. “Show me.”

**Author's Note:**

> I've only listened to 23 episodes so far but I mentioned this idea to my best friend who got me into this podcast and he told me to write it so I did this is for you John please enjoy mwah


End file.
